Bonita Stewart, a Howard alumna and Google’s Vice President of Global Partnerships, wrote about the company’s push to step up its game in terms of diversity.

Her top thought: quoting Peter Drucker’s comment that “the best way to predict the future is to create it.”

“’Howard West’ is now the centerpiece of Google’s effort to recruit more Black software engineers from Historically Black Colleges and Universities [known as HBCUs]—and to make them feel right at home here in Mountain View,” Stewart wrote in a statement.

Google’s diversity numbers show a lack of balance

Google seems to be taking on the underrepresentation of minority groups head-on because the data show a workforce that is heavily homogenous. Google’s US workforce is reportedly 2% Black, 3% Hispanic, 3% “two or more races,” 1% “other” (including “American Indian/Alaskan Native and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander”), 32% Asian, and 59% White, according to January 2016 data. The company also has a long way to go in terms of hiring more female Googlers. It’s global employees are reportedly 31% women and 69% men, according to January 2016 data.

The Google-Howard relationship

“Howard West will produce hundreds of industry-ready Black computer science graduates, future leaders with the power to transform the global technology space into a stronger, more accurate reflection of the world around us…We envisioned this program with bold outcomes in mind,” Frederick said in a statement.

But Google and Howard already go way back.

The school is one of 10 HBCUs involved in the Google in Residence Program, an initiative where the company’s software engineers teach beginner-level computer science courses on campuses for four to five months. Outside of Howard in Washington, D.C., Google in Residence has a presence at other HBCUs in Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, Virginia, Georgia and Maryland.

Students in their first year get instruction on “basic coding and debugging, simple data structures, and how to work with large code bases,” according to Google, as well as development and other skills they take with them to the tech world.

Facebook’s work with diverse college students

Facebook University (FBU) is an 8-week internship program for college students of color “those who are historically underrepresented in the tech industry” to get experience in business, engineering and analytics.

FBU for Engineering began in 2013 with a class of 30 students, and increased to 170 students in 2016. FBU for Business started in 2015, and FBU for Analytics began in 2016, but students don’t need to know coding beforehand. “Former trainees” came back for full-time jobs at Facebook starting in 2016.